serinde

They found Heath Ledger dead in his apartment. No sign of foul play at this time, but they found pills near him. (Nothing about what pills, mind you...).

I'm really woeful about this. I've not seen a lot of his movies but, so far, I've been amazed at how he disappears into roles (as opposed to most actors in vogue right now, who make you ever so aware that you are watching Handsome Actor Foo Bar), and I was settling down to many happy years of watching him go forth and conquer.

dariodevil is on the phone with a friend right now, and was commenting that Ledger is known to be a Seriously Method Actor and that perhaps disappearing into the role of the Joker was more than he could cope with. Now it's not like there's any good reason for such a death to happen, but that would be a worse'n than many.

Have developed a sore throat over the course of the last hour. NO NO NO NO NO NO NO. I cannot be sick this week.

Am home from merry con-going. audiovile's brand new computer is not working AGAIN--this time the hard drive, apparently (and he has a recurring touch of the crystal spins). elibalin is ill of fatigue. Found that dariodevil hasn't been able to sleep for nearly the whole time I've been gone (but at least he's sleeping now). House is in the disaster state we left it. Don't know if naudia and Brian have even left Boston yet. Must spend all of tomorrow writing project proposals to present unto The Boss on Wednesday.

Iz can be nap tiem now plz? No, no it can't. Iz can be unpacking and laundry and feeding people tiem now.

At last, my morning has stopped screaming long enough for me to be able to say:

Happy birthday, shechameleon!

Brainstorming for yet another spread out of my new cookbook...

Noci in Camicia
Pomodori Ripieni con Formaggio Caprino ed Erba Cipollina
La "Turta" di Spinaci e Riso
Tortellini col Sugo Fresco di Pomodoro
Conchiglie col Sugo di Salsicce, Panna e Pomodoro
Risotto col Radicchio Rosso
Cipolle Ripiene al Forno
Melanzane al Forno
Finocchi in Insalata con Salsa Piccante
Torta di Cioccolato con Uvetta e Pignoli
Riso Nero

And, of course, Fragole all'Aceto Balsamico, since it was such a hit last time.

I can't bear to let go any of these options.

So, I have to give this orientation, as I said. By which I mean, the mail from the First Year Orientation People with the "here's when everyone's talking at the poor kids" had gone to The Boss, who forwarded it to me with a one-line of "You should be involved in this", followed by a two-minute of "Last year I showed them the video then chatted with them a bit". Um, okay. So I'll show them the video and then I busted my ass making a Keynote presentation (I, who have never used a powerpointy thing in my entire life); it is simple and has no audio, but it looks tolerably good. And the slides just have various points which I can either cover tersely or bloviate on, depending on how much time it should take. (Our department has a half hour, but I had not yet been told whether I would actually give this, or The Boss would, or I'd give it and then he'd speechify, or what.)

1. I finally asked him, after getting no answer to my mail. He'd forgotten about it, would try and make it, "but you should just go ahead and give it if I'm not there." WHAT

2. Guided by the serpentine wisdom of older hands, I proactively checked with A/V Guy to see if I could use the smart classroom this fandango is in, or one with the same equipage, so I don't look like a complete schmuck as the representative of IT using IT's OWN EQUIPMENT. Finally, about 2:30, I heard back. "Oh, THAT smart classroom isn't done yet. It only has a PC in it. No, it's all wired together so you can't hook in a Mac, or any laptop at all, even if you have all the right dongles." WHAT

So I've exported from Keynote to Quicktime, which they tell me there is a shiny newest version of on said PC, and God bless Apple for it can export in "wait for manual advance" so it should, I emphasize SHOULD, work the same way. A/V Guy's minion said to phone him 10 min. before and he'd come along with to make sure all the parts are in working order or fix them if they aren't. It's not as good as actually being able to do a test run, but it's the best I can do. (Unless I can sneak in right at 9 and screw with it before the program starts, but I don't put money on it.)

Having finished cleaning the kitchen after yesterday's excesses, it is clearly time to make another mess. I have a loaf of maple pecan bread rising--which, though it's whole wheat flour in a 3:1 ratio over white, actually seemed to Do The Right Thing unlike my last attempt, though it remains a stone bitch to knead--and will be making Poule au Pot (or "Pol Pot", as my whimsical pooky would have it) for dinner. I'm also toying with the idea of making up the mince pies I didn't manage to make over the holidays, but that's a lot of work and I should probably do something more relevant, like cleaning up the basement and shifting pantry goods around. Especially as we still have ten Imperial assloads of candy left over. And I'd also like to plunge further into the new cookbook, since I have a fridge currently bursting with pancetta, tomatoes, eggplant, and things of that ilk.

What I probably need most of all is a nice tall glass of Settle Down, Beavis.

Though I really enjoy cooking and baking, I'm starting to realize that, unlike most of my amusements, it's a fair bit tiring (der!), and therefore when I spend the day doing that and then look at all the chores I have yet to do, I feel doubleplus oppressed. I seem to be setting myself up for a no-win situation in this respect. I must either classify it as "recreation", in which case I do not have the option, morally speaking, of saying "well I made food, so you guys do laundry/cat box/vacuum/etc."; or it is "work", in which case the group gestalt would be "well, no one said you HAD to spend an entire day in the kitchen, we'd be content with jar sauce". --I realize this probably seems like a no-brainer for all of you playing along at home, but it's a revelation for me.

My "quiet, restful weekend" has somehow morphed into "I am going to make a full-on dinner out of the cookbook I got for Giftmas from sweh". I've been mostly plotzing about everything I don't have, which is stupid considering I went to the store this morning. Helpful hint: if you're going to be cooking from an Italian cookbook, don't forget the fucking basil.

Will post menu later, if it does not crash down in flames.

Or: Transit Fail Trifecta In Play.

What's worse than my 2.5 hour commute last night? My 2.5 hour commute this morning. Because it's about twenty degrees colder.

The odyssey begins on the train from my station, where (just before the transfer station where you switch to go to NYC) the conductor announced that there was a problem at Penn, and one should not attempt to transfer, and some other stuff that couldn't be heard because the speaker in the car I was in was broken. sweh tipped me off via text that a train had broken down in the tunnel UPDATE: It was power lines down in Newark, which was WHAT BROKE EVERYTHING LAST NIGHT, did I mention how third-world this Goddamn system is?--and that, additionally, there was a fire at Hoboken so the PATH wasn't running.

Here is where I made a failure of judgment: I backed the notion that the PATH would be up and running first. This was dumb, because non-working Penn Station during rush hour is going to be serious priority, but they often fail at that anyways, and usually PATH failures are of moderately brief duration. Too, from Hoboken I had the option of taking the ferry. So I stayed on.

So, Hoboken, and indeed the PATH is not running. The line for the ferry snakes all the way through the station and out to the bus parking lot. They're telling people to get on the light rail, which goes down through Jersey City (and wouldn't that have been useful when we lived there?), and pick up the PATH from Pavonia or Exchange Place. Ensues now a half-hour waiting on a cold pier in a mob of people who are trying to stuff onto a transit in no way prepared to cope with it. I should mention at this point that, although I was pretty well bundled up, I had one major error in garb: in the dark, I'd accidentally grabbed my summer hiking socks. The ones that try to direct heat AWAY FROM YOUR FEET. My toes are blocks of ice.

Eventually I get on a train, and eventually it gets to Exchange Place. Whereupon another ten minutes of wait in an unheated alcove to get into the station, whereupon we learn that this line is experiencing delays due to "police activity". Rioting annoyed passengers, I can only assume. UPDATE: A drunk guy fell on the tracks. *headdesk* (No, he didn't get hit, he just fucked everyone else up.) And the first PATH that comes is so crowded, almost no one can get on it. I make the second one, and then transfer to the 4/5 at Fulton, which then proceeds to go more slowly than the local. But, at length, I arrive, a full hour late.

And then discover that the mini-Starbucks in the lobby has broken their espresso machine. PERFECT!~

It is to be hoped that the annoyance will fade in time for me to be productive, but I make no promises.

Or, "all our couch potato time during long weekend". (jdev has already commented some on these matters; q.v.)

Plan 9 From Outer Space, also the sound of my Ed Wood cherry being popped. They did not lie. It is bad. But screamingly funny in its badness.

Elvira, Mistress of the Dark. I'd never seen it, since I was a little too young (and uninterested in horror or boobies) during Elvira's heyday of popularity, but what a gloriously fun romp of campiness!

Vampyros Lesbos: Jesus Christ, was this ever bad. Not even bad in a good way. Not even good in a lesbian vampire way. There were points of hilarity, such as the random, inexplicable cuts to small insects doing their own things (our best guess for the scorpion is that its tail represents the erection of the hopeful male viewers desperately waiting for Hot Vampire Chick On Vampire Chick Action; we have no idea about the moth. Or the psionic kite), but mostly just utterly tedious. Begs for MST3K to compress it to maybe an hour.

Tango and Cash. The only thing that saves this movie from being a lower-middle-to-crappy generic 80s action buddy film that would never darken my TV's doorstep is the fact that Stallone and Russell are absolute gold together. Every moment of interaction between them is worth it. I am not just saying this because I <3 The Kurt, either.

Boondock Saints, rented on dariodevil's persuasion. Holy wow, was it ever good. (Steve and Dario are still downstairs raving about the direction and cinematography, twenty+ minutes after we finished it.)

We shut off both Transylvania 6-5000 and Anchorman partway in, due to boredom. Pity, on the former. We had hopes of Adorable Young Jeff Goldblum, but he could not save it from its direness. (I already knew I didn't have any use for the latter.)

Bonus Crap TV:
* I'm very disappointed in the Beeb. Their "Robin Hood" series stinks in every possible respect. Swear to God, Maid Marian is wearing a sweater set at one point. ...I will probably have to go back and re-watch ITV's "Robin of Sherwood" to see if my older, wiser, more jaded self will love it as much as my barely-pubescent, first-stirrings-of-womanhood self did, or whether it was no better than this tripe. --Can't be this bad. No. No way could it be.

* Robot Chicken is, as always, awesome.

* I really wish Scrubs hadn't gone all sitcom in later seasons. It's still enjoyable, but not The Best Damn Thing On TV as it was the first couple.

* Love Batman:TAS as I did when I occasionally caught it when first broadcast. Hate hate HATE intrusive interstitial advertising. Die in a fire, Disney Channel, though G4 can go first.